Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence • Hacker News Board

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#231

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:19 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #174

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proposals like this are how you get the billionaire paying their chauffeur's $50 fines so they can get everywhere faster while sticking some small business owner in an industry with feast or famine years with a $50,000 ticket for having a slightly miscalibrated speedometer. Creating new arbitrage opportunities benefits the powerful, not the weak.

This isn't arbitrage, it's looking for loopholes. Presumably your "feast or famine" business owner did the responsible thing with leveling their income, no? They didn't? Oh, why would that be the public's concern. That would level out in their feasting years, after all (assuming you're using the previous year's taxable income, or an average income over the previous three years or so). The chauffeur is subject to the…

> This isn't arbitrage, it's looking for loopholes.

"Have someone who pays the lower amount do the thing" is precisely arbitrage.

> That would level out in their feasting years, after all (assuming you're using the previous year's taxable income, or an average income over the previous three years or so).

Their income for the last three years was $10k, $10k and $1M. Their 20 year average is $80k but the three year average is $340k. So now you're increasing their exposure even more -- before they get a hugely disproportionate fine if it happens to be in the one year they made $1M. Now they still get a disproportionate fine but are exposed to it for three times as long.

> The chauffeur is subject to the rules around their CDL or similar, or is in service of their employer. When driving a work vehicle, my fines are already directed at my employer.

Michael Dell hails a cab and then the driver gets a speeding ticket. No evidence driver had any idea of his passenger's net worth; no evidence the passenger ever requested exceeding the speed limit and couldn't see the speedometer from the back seat. Is this a billion dollar fine? Who pays it, the person who has nothing like a billion dollars or the person who did nothing wrong?

It's clearly unreasonable to impose the fine in that case, but it's also easy to use it for arbitrage if you don't.

> It blows my mind how much we are willing to bend over backwards to ensure the powerful won't suffer a moment's inconvenience in this country.

Maybe we should have a preference for rules that are effective rather than performative.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#232

Post by arionhardison » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #146

DivingForGold wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases it's "all about the money" (and the lawyers). Take the case of Billionaire hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors who was famously pursued by federal prosecutors as their ultimate "white whale" in a massive insider trading probe. Though his firm pleaded guilty and paid a record $1.8 billion fine, Cohen himself was never criminally charged or convicted. Yet two lower underlings were c…

That’s infuriating.

Yes, it's also solvable; the crux of the issue is that these people have made it problematic to even discuss any solutions that do not serve their personal, financial and nationalist interest.

All and any fact should be up for discussion. For example, the black community; my community has a serious problem with violence that has caused increased police presence as it spilled out and impacted other communities. We can discuss the why but the fact exist and its up for discussion.

All discussion of the conditions which allow situations like this to occur are shut down and labeled an ism, ist etc...

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#233

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

skinfaxi wrote: post #200

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it applied equally to everyone, then more people would be outraged as it affected them. In order to do this you need to have laws that are designed to be reasonable for people to actually follow instead of laws that are designed to allow prosecutors to find a violation whenever they want to. Actually enforcing them would create pressure to do that, but it would also create pressure to go back to selective enforc…

I think part of the balance is that law requires discretion because humans are not good at making deny lists which the law boils down to.

[deleted]

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#234

Post by IncreasePosts » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

john_strinlai wrote: post #100

IncreasePosts wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She could have just never even brought the prosecution in the first place.

im not saying she did the right thing, im just answering the question of "how does prosecuting someone help her career advancement".

The point is the prosecution's case was ultra weak. He rejected a 6 month plea deal because they were confident they would win in court. That's not the kind of case you bring to get ahead in your career

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#235

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:31 AM UTC

skinfaxi wrote: post #200

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it applied equally to everyone, then more people would be outraged as it affected them. In order to do this you need to have laws that are designed to be reasonable for people to actually follow instead of laws that are designed to allow prosecutors to find a violation whenever they want to. Actually enforcing them would create pressure to do that, but it would also create pressure to go back to selective enforc…

I think part of the balance is that law requires discretion because humans are not good at making deny lists which the law boils down to.

That's just conceding that you don't actually want to have laws and really only want to punish people when you don't like them.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#236

Post by RealStupidity » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:31 AM UTC

sejje wrote: post #229

thousand_nights wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was a bright and broken child i wasn't there and i didn't know him, but talking about a 26 year old man like this makes it seem like you're just taking away his autonomy

Aaron was a figure in the community for a long time, beginning when he was a child

[flagged]

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#237

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:32 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #174

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proposals like this are how you get the billionaire paying their chauffeur's $50 fines so they can get everywhere faster while sticking some small business owner in an industry with feast or famine years with a $50,000 ticket for having a slightly miscalibrated speedometer. Creating new arbitrage opportunities benefits the powerful, not the weak.

This isn't arbitrage, it's looking for loopholes. Presumably your "feast or famine" business owner did the responsible thing with leveling their income, no? They didn't? Oh, why would that be the public's concern. That would level out in their feasting years, after all (assuming you're using the previous year's taxable income, or an average income over the previous three years or so). The chauffeur is subject to the…

Even flat-out rejecting the desire to charge them more wouldn't be bending over backwards for them. It would simply be charging them based on harm done rather than what affects them.

And the post you're responding to is making a much less extreme position, that it's hard to scale the fine properly.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#238

Post by gnarbarian » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:32 AM UTC

rules are there to serve power

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#239

Post by arionhardison » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:36 AM UTC

unpop wrote: post #214

arionhardison wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point here is that as you stated: "you still do not understand". For those of us that have been under the thumb of the judicial system it can feel like the world is on you. We have no idea of his mental state, we have no idea of the nuance or motivation but what I do think we know is that the actions of the state here far exceeded any interpretation of what would be deemed an appropriate punishment for the said "…

[flagged]

You are a coward; which is why you cannot use your name or identity and only feel comfortable insulting people online because it makes you feel like a big bad keyboard warrior.

I feel bad for you because not only is your argument irrational and baseless its not even entertaining. I am not one of the "thugs" that harassed him. I never met him; but I was a huge fan. I am also not employed by anyone that would participate in such things. If you had even a modicum of intelligence you would just look at my other post and easily infer as such.

I suggest you drink some water, check-in with a loved one and get some rest.

Be well.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#240

Post by silver_sun » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:38 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #161

pdonis wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The information Swartz was downloading was scientific papers that we, the public, have already paid for with our tax dollars. The crime here is that the government allows JSTOR and other private companies to still hold those papers behind paywalls instead of releasing them into the public domain as they should have been.

Doesn't matter if the public funded it. The public didn't mandate or pay for the publication rights or access. The public might donate food to the poor. That doesn't give them the right to go into their house and rummage through their fridge. Maybe there is a missed opportunity to require open access as a condition of public grant funding. That doesn't change the fact that it is not a stipulated condition.

>The public might donate food to the poor. That doesn't give them the right to go into their house and rummage through their fridge.

I think a better analogy for this situation is: The public donates food, then the recipient, after being fed, sells access to (infinite cheaply replicable copies of) said food for a profit. The public in this case just wants to have said food.